Trub: leave or rack?

Make grain beers with the absolute minimum of equipment. Discuss here.
McMullan

Re: Trub: leave or rack?

Post by McMullan » Mon Apr 24, 2017 7:26 pm

Experiments are designed to better understand possible associations between cause and effect. Brulosophy don’t design experiments. Brewing scientists figured out the likely benefits trub can have on fermentation years ago. It can cause issues in commercial brewing systems, which is why commercial breweries often prefer clearer worts being pumped into their FVs. Personally, I try not to let too much through, as the taps on my FVs are positioned quite low and I like my beers to go bright quickly in a secondary before kegging. The problem, for me, is the last particles to settle are the small ones, which are easily mobilised and transferred with the beer. Also, if too much trub is transferred into an FV, I suspect there is a risk the large particles, obeying Stoke’s Law, drag out yeast and bury them, which possibly promotes a delay in primary fermentation kick off. Too much of anything is usually a bad idea when brewing. More trub means less beer :|

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Norik
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Re: Trub: leave or rack?

Post by Norik » Sun Jun 18, 2017 10:34 pm

McMullan wrote:Brewing scientists figured out the likely benefits trub can have on fermentation years ago. It can cause issues in commercial brewing systems, which is why commercial breweries often prefer clearer worts being pumped into their FVs.
Source?
Litany For Beer
I must drink the Beer.
Beer is the mind-killer.
Beer is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my Beer.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the Beer has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.



Hitchens's Razor:
"What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."

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Eric
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Re: Trub: leave or rack?

Post by Eric » Mon Jun 19, 2017 12:14 am

Norik wrote:
McMullan wrote:Brewing scientists figured out the likely benefits trub can have on fermentation years ago. It can cause issues in commercial brewing systems, which is why commercial breweries often prefer clearer worts being pumped into their FVs.
Source?
There probably isn't any, it was when breweries employed chemist for the first time. You are talking about the period about 1880. Not many years before then there was no such title as chemist, the field known as alchemy with little understanding of what they did with most preoccupied trying to convert base metal to gold. When their findings improved the product, larger breweries put chemists on their staff and although they were initially hidden from other staff who thought they knew everything there was about brewing, brewing become more scientificly based with myths being eradicated.

Since the quite recent rediscovery of beer in far flung parts of the world, many myths have returned. While yeast can benefit from some of the waste products of the brewing process, it was shown in the very early days of science (another new word of those times) that such surplus was more beneficial to bacteria and other contaminants than for yeast, so purity and a controlled amount of nutrient added to the FV was almost universally adopted.

If your equipment can't hold back trub, don't worry, it is still more likely you will produce a clean and drinkable product than one infected or polluted, but if you purposely allow trub to move to a next stage it's likely you have read more text from ill-informed brewers than of scientific ones.
Without patience, life becomes difficult and the sooner it's finished, the better.

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Re: Trub: leave or rack?

Post by Norik » Mon Jun 19, 2017 5:12 am

Ah, hearsay and anecdotes.
Litany For Beer
I must drink the Beer.
Beer is the mind-killer.
Beer is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my Beer.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the Beer has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.



Hitchens's Razor:
"What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."

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Re: Trub: leave or rack?

Post by Eric » Mon Jun 19, 2017 11:33 am

Norik wrote:Ah, hearsay and anecdotes.
No, far, far, far from it, it was just a part of a far reaching examination of brewing problems. It's there to be found for those who want to know, but not in glib one line ill-informed dismisive crap occasionally found when browsing forums on the internet.

It started when the Dean of the Faculty of Science at the University of Lille was asked to find the cause of fermentations going sour and needing to be thrown away. Under a microscope were seen thousands of micro-organisms that he decided were not the result of putrefaction, but the cause. This work isn't so well known as that he later did from his knowledge so gained, for who does not know of pateurisation? Even so, he was much vilified by the public who refused to believe what he had discovered, something in human nature that still exists in some individuals today.

About this same time a Jacob Jacobsen had a brewery in Copenhagen he'd named after his son Carl. He wasn't a scientist but attended lectures to realise there was a lot to be learned about beer production, so opened a laboratory in 1875. Reading only a little of the work done by Emil Hansen and Soren Sorensen teaches one how profound an influence on today's world reseach into beer has been, carried out by those who cared to learn from such work. Britain also had many great men too, carrying on from this work, such as Cornelius O'Sullivan with his brother and sons, and the great Horace Brown who did have published a great amount of his work.

Needing a relatively trivial effort to improve filtering, this subject didn't really hit the headlines then, but has been the objective of most homebrewers. Modern materials such as low cost stainless steel has made it much easier today for those wh wish to take this route.

It's a bit like leaving food around attracts rats. They may or may not cause you troubles, but if there's no food for them to eat, although omnipresent across the globe, they survive best where it's easiest to find something to consume.
Last edited by Eric on Mon Jun 19, 2017 12:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Trub: leave or rack?

Post by orlando » Mon Jun 19, 2017 12:57 pm

What muddy's this water is the definition of Trub, or trube if hailing from the North Americas :D , the confusion of cold break being included as part of the definition. Arguably a strict interpretation is that that's left over after fermentation, not before. A reasonably efficient copper filter, use of copper finings and some patience, and very little cold break and other material should carry over. Now, if the argument is running to should cold break be dumped or ignored, that's a slightly more nuanced discussion. If there is some definitive science out there I would like to see it but suspect that brewers for centuries haven't worried that much about it so yeast has probably become accustomed to it and arguably is so habituated to it that it really doesn't matter, or all the beer from the past and a lot of it now is crap. I don't think that's true, crap beer exists of course but for many other reasons unrelated to this discussion.
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Eric
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Re: Trub: leave or rack?

Post by Eric » Mon Jun 19, 2017 1:22 pm

Cold break is a different matter, some do and some don't filter it out. The amount of cold break is trivial such that its presence does not raise this question of should efforts be made to get it out.
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Re: Trub: leave or rack?

Post by Norik » Tue Jun 20, 2017 12:24 am

Eric wrote:No, far, far, far from it, it was just a part of a far reaching examination of brewing problems. It's there to be found for those who want to know, but not in glib one line ill-informed dismisive crap occasionally found when browsing forums on the internet.

It started when the Dean of the Faculty of Science at the University of Lille was asked to find the cause of fermentations going sour and needing to be thrown away. Under a microscope were seen thousands of micro-organisms that he decided were not the result of putrefaction, but the cause. This work isn't so well known as that he later did from his knowledge so gained, for who does not know of pateurisation? Even so, he was much vilified by the public who refused to believe what he had discovered, something in human nature that still exists in some individuals today.

About this same time a Jacob Jacobsen had a brewery in Copenhagen he'd named after his son Carl. He wasn't a scientist but attended lectures to realise there was a lot to be learned about beer production, so opened a laboratory in 1875. Reading only a little of the work done by Emil Hansen and Soren Sorensen teaches one how profound an influence on today's world reseach into beer has been, carried out by those who cared to learn from such work. Britain also had many great men too, carrying on from this work, such as Cornelius O'Sullivan with his brother and sons, and the great Horace Brown who did have published a great amount of his work.

Needing a relatively trivial effort to improve filtering, this subject didn't really hit the headlines then, but has been the objective of most homebrewers. Modern materials such as low cost stainless steel has made it much easier today for those wh wish to take this route.

It's a bit like leaving food around attracts rats. They may or may not cause you troubles, but if there's no food for them to eat, although omnipresent across the globe, they survive best where it's easiest to find something to consume.

Thankyou =D>, I challenged you on sources and references, and you stepped up.
I'll take a dive into some of those names when I have the time. Cheers
Litany For Beer
I must drink the Beer.
Beer is the mind-killer.
Beer is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my Beer.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the Beer has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.



Hitchens's Razor:
"What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."

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Eric
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Re: Trub: leave or rack?

Post by Eric » Tue Jun 20, 2017 1:04 am

Horace Brown's paper on flocculation of wort after cooling, I think he read it to the Institute of Brewing in 1916, is probably a good starting place. Forty years later it was still being argued about because of the greatness of the man when later evidence suggested the best cooling rate should be 3 seconds less than he advised.

It isn't possible to remove all imperfections between stages of the brewing process, they can only be minimised. The influence on the beer of unwanted material can be massive and can be learned from the history of those breweries that didn't connect well with science. However, with no more than modest luck, the typical homebrewer can produce something drinkable, even pleasurable before intoxication takes over without regard to such dangers. The problem lies in avoidance of learning the dangers.
Without patience, life becomes difficult and the sooner it's finished, the better.

McMullan

Re: Trub: leave or rack?

Post by McMullan » Fri Jun 23, 2017 11:35 pm

Norik wrote:
McMullan wrote:Brewing scientists figured out the likely benefits trub can have on fermentation years ago. It can cause issues in commercial brewing systems, which is why commercial breweries often prefer clearer worts being pumped into their FVs.
Source?
Beers, beverages generally, need to be filterable pre filtering. Google it, at least, you slob :roll:

McMullan

Re: Trub: leave or rack?

Post by McMullan » Fri Jun 23, 2017 11:38 pm

Norik wrote:
Eric wrote:No, far, far, far from it, it was just a part of a far reaching examination of brewing problems. It's there to be found for those who want to know, but not in glib one line ill-informed dismisive crap occasionally found when browsing forums on the internet.

It started when the Dean of the Faculty of Science at the University of Lille was asked to find the cause of fermentations going sour and needing to be thrown away. Under a microscope were seen thousands of micro-organisms that he decided were not the result of putrefaction, but the cause. This work isn't so well known as that he later did from his knowledge so gained, for who does not know of pateurisation? Even so, he was much vilified by the public who refused to believe what he had discovered, something in human nature that still exists in some individuals today.

About this same time a Jacob Jacobsen had a brewery in Copenhagen he'd named after his son Carl. He wasn't a scientist but attended lectures to realise there was a lot to be learned about beer production, so opened a laboratory in 1875. Reading only a little of the work done by Emil Hansen and Soren Sorensen teaches one how profound an influence on today's world reseach into beer has been, carried out by those who cared to learn from such work. Britain also had many great men too, carrying on from this work, such as Cornelius O'Sullivan with his brother and sons, and the great Horace Brown who did have published a great amount of his work.

Needing a relatively trivial effort to improve filtering, this subject didn't really hit the headlines then, but has been the objective of most homebrewers. Modern materials such as low cost stainless steel has made it much easier today for those wh wish to take this route.

It's a bit like leaving food around attracts rats. They may or may not cause you troubles, but if there's no food for them to eat, although omnipresent across the globe, they survive best where it's easiest to find something to consume.

Thankyou =D>, I challenged you on sources and references, and you stepped up.
I'll take a dive into some of those names when I have the time. Cheers
But you won't have the time, will you?

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Norik
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Re: Trub: leave or rack?

Post by Norik » Fri Jun 23, 2017 11:54 pm

McMullan wrote:Beers, beverages generally, need to be filterable pre filtering. Google it, at least, you slob :roll:
Tautologies is it now?
Litany For Beer
I must drink the Beer.
Beer is the mind-killer.
Beer is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my Beer.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the Beer has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.



Hitchens's Razor:
"What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."

McMullan

Re: Trub: leave or rack?

Post by McMullan » Sat Jun 24, 2017 12:11 am

Norik wrote:
McMullan wrote:Beers, beverages generally, need to be filterable pre filtering. Google it, at least, you slob :roll:
Tautologies is it now?
Ask someone who filters commercial beverages about the issues of getting filters clogged halfway through a batch. 'Tautology' is a big word, for you =D>

McMullan

Re: Trub: leave or rack?

Post by McMullan » Sat Jun 24, 2017 12:24 am

Norik wrote:
McMullan wrote:Brewing scientists figured out the likely benefits trub can have on fermentation years ago. It can cause issues in commercial brewing systems, which is why commercial breweries often prefer clearer worts being pumped into their FVs.
Source?
I have several references in my collection. If you were that interested (and less lazy), you could probably manage to find them yourself, with a little luck and your local library. I spoon-fed my children, but they manage to feed themselves these days. It's called 'growing up' and exploring the world for yourself :wink:

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Norik
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Re: Trub: leave or rack?

Post by Norik » Sat Jun 24, 2017 8:55 am

I am incredibly sorry for offending you, I thought you were either being simply rude, or a troll.

Eric mentioned "brewing scientists" had found that trub had benefits on fermentation. Which I requested a source on, and in reply he did an excellent job. Which in turn I felt the need to show my approval for, because he had obviously put some effort in to.

Then you got your knickers in a twist, and felt the need to state that to filter something it must be filterable. However you're right, tautology is well above my education level, and certainly shouldn't get ideas above myself.

I did consider adding some folksy drivel about what I've taught my children, but to be honest you're just being a cock for the sake of being a cock
Litany For Beer
I must drink the Beer.
Beer is the mind-killer.
Beer is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my Beer.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the Beer has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.



Hitchens's Razor:
"What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."

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